


Sun Trap

by FaerieChild



Series: Spooks - Bond crossover universe [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Spooks | MI-5
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieChild/pseuds/FaerieChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Pearce and James Bond get in some brother-in-law bonding while sunbathing. A silly little ficlet set in my 'The Eyes Have It' universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Trap

**Author's Note:**

> This one's just for fun.

Harry was in the garden when James called around. M had thrown him out of MI6 and Q, bastard that he was, had stood there grinning smugly at James's predicament. Realistically he had limited options for what to do in London right now. For various reasons he had to avoid several of his regular haunts and so he had found himself seeking out the company of his brother-in-law, a senior official in the sister service, MI5. Unfortunately Ruth was much too busy to have time for him but Harry, she said, was off for the day having worked through the night and James decided he wouldn't mind the man's company.

Harry was a spy like him. He understood when to keep quiet. He enjoyed the companionship of others who thought like him and James found him easy company. As it was the day was sunny and he opened the garden gate, a creak of the hinges giving away his presence, to be met by a shout from the back garden.

In the hot afternoon sun of July, Sir Harry Pearce was sitting out on the patio with his shirt unbuttoned , enjoying the sun. He had at his side a bottle of beer and a small jack russell terrier who seemed content to join in the worship of the sun.

“James!”

“Hello, Harry.” James smiled fondly at the older man. As someone who was quietly bisexual, James had often wondered what Ruth saw in the man before him. He was short, fat, and had a legendary bad temper. But as he got to know Harry, James began to appreciate that the man before him was stubborn, loving and loyal to a fault. Still, looking at him now, James fought back a smile at the belly on display.

“We can't all have six packs, Bond.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Would you like a beer?”

“Please.”

The casual jacket that James had thrown over his polo shirt and shorts James peeled off as the heat of the sun trap in the back garden warmed him up and James helped himself to the empty seat beside Harry's. A beer appeared at his side and James picked it up and knocked it against Harry's with a smile.

“Slainte.”

“Slainte,” Harry smiled. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Boredom?”

Harry chuckled warmly. “Forced down time?”

“M said if I came back within forty-eight hours I'd be shot.”

“Again? That seems rather cruel.”

“How did you know I'd been shot?” James's brows drew together in confusion.

“According to a certain someone we have matching scars.”

James paused for a moment, shrugged to himself and then tore his top off.

Harry pulled his shirt aside to reveal the gunshot wound in his own shoulder. He examined James's rather more toned torso. It wasn't that he was intimidated by Ruth's brother, but Harry had always been reluctant to take his shirt off and it was curious to note the myriad scars on the other man's chest. Quietly at the back of his mind, Harry found himself contrasting and comparing.

“Come on, then,” James prompted.

“Come on what?”

“Shirt off, Harry. I've shown you mine.”

“I've shown you mine as well,” Harry pouted. “James, I think we both know I'll never be able to compete in the torso department.”

“Off!” James insisted.

“You've been hanging out with that Quartermaster of yours too much,” Harry grumbled. “You never used to be this bossy.”

“We could always play strip poker?”

“James, I think we both know...”

James's stare was uncompromising. With a resigned sigh, Sir Harry leaned forwards and slowly peeled the shirt off his back revealing a myriad of scars and torture wounds. Quietly he categorised them. A skim by a bullet, the knifes, the cigarettes, the burns.

Beside him, James Bond snorted loudly. “No fucking wonder, mate. That's some collection. Of course, I'd show you mine,” James said quietly, “But Ruth would be liable to think we're having an affair.”

“I won't tell if you don't.”

Surreptitiously, James looked at either side of the garden wall, wondering if the neighbours were in. “Well, I never did believe in tan lines anyway,” James grinned and whipped his shorts off.

Beside him, Harry Pearce chuckled. He was perfectly used to male nudity from his time in the army and in other countries it was considered perfectly normal. In a back garden in London, however, it was bound to get a few odd looks. “If we get arrested, James Bond, I am entirely blaming you.”

“Well,” James decided, “It will serve M right.”

An hour later, Ruth Evershed arrived home and called out to Harry who had been sleeping during the day after spending all night on the Grid. She had left slightly early and gotten home sharp and so the sun was still high in the sky as afternoon turned to evening and Ruth wandered through the house, checking the living room and the kitchen. With no response she decided he was probably in the garden enjoying the sun and opened the kitchen door to be met with an eyeful of full-frontal nudity.

“James!” Ruth covered her eyes.

Harry at least had the decency to keep his trunks on. He was lying on his front with all of his scars in full view. 

“Ruth?” Harry's jaw cracked as he yawned and he realised he must have dozed off in the sun. “Is it that time already?”

“James, what on earth are you doing here?”

“Oh, he popped round,” Harry stretched and swung his legs off the end of the sunlounger so he could stand up. “Is everything alright?”

On the neighbouring sun lounger, James looked up. “Hello, Ruth.”

“Harry,” Ruth said, still staring at James, “There's a naked man in our garden.”

“James popped over,” Harry repeated.

“Why is he naked?”

“Because I decided if we were going to get arrested for indecent exposure it should probably only be one of us and kept my trunks on.”

Ruth glared at Harry.

Harry floundered slightly. “He was bored. I was sunbathing. James decided to try sunbathing.”

“Without clothes?”

“We didn't start out without clothes, we were comparing scars...”

“...and one thing led to another?” Ruth queried.

“We're actually having an affair,” James announced.

Ruth hit him over the head with the Evening Standard. 

“Ouch!”

“That's for sleeping naked in my garden and that,” Ruth hit James again, “Is for joking about shagging my husband.”

James considered this a moment and then shrugged, considering it a fair punishment. After all, another woman might have shot him again. Probably through the same shoulder.

“I suppose the little smart-arse is coming over for dinner as well?” Ruth demanded.

“I expect so,” James rubbed his head. “Q usually has at least three trackers on me at any one time and he was entirely too smug when M threw me out this morning.”

Nearby Harry began searching for his clothes. “I suppose I should pop the barbeque on.”

Ruth rolled her eyes at the thought of three men and a barbeque. They might get dinner cooked by nightfall, if they didn't set the whole neighbourhood on fire. James, however, only stretched out under the fading sun and shifted his legs a little wider. “Oh for the love of God, James, put some shorts on!”

 

Q did come over and they did have a barbeque and they manged to only singe a few pieces of garden furniture. James let Ruth be wound up a little longer but eventually acquiesced to slipping on the shorts that he'd arrived in. No one got food poisoning. Rather unhelpfully, Q found the whole saga hilarious and complimented Ruth on the seclusion of the little spot that meant they had a perfect spot away from prying eyes. It had never occurred to Ruth that a blind spot at the back of the house would ever be put to such a use.

Three days later, Ruth was putting the bins out on the street on her way out to work when Mrs Jones who was out on her morning walk wandered past along the pavement. Ruth knew Mrs Jones by sight because her garden backed onto the garden of Harry's house and the elderly woman winked at her and poked Ruth with her walking stick.

“I should probably tell you, Lady Pearce, your husband had a bit of company over the other day,” Mrs Jones winked at Ruth.

“Oh?” Ruth checked her watch. The bus left in eight minutes and it was a five minute walk. “Oh you probably mean James.”

“James,” Mrs Jones smiled, “That's a nice name. Have you known him long?”

“A few years now, actually,” Ruth checked her watch again.

“I mean, don't get me wrong, Lady Pearce, I'm not one to judge. If you and your husband enjoy a bit of male company that's up to you. I only thought I'd ask...does he often do house calls? Only I can't get out like I used to on account of my hip and I thought if you knew of a nice young man like that...”

Ruth was caught speechless. Oh dear. What was she going to tell Harry?

~


End file.
